Rising star wins national title

Gymnastic's Australia high performance manager Adam Sachs said that in an extraordinary showcase of skill and talent, Leydin triumphed with a total score of 51.225.

"Maddie Leydin and her fellow athletes in the VIS program have been working hard to increase the difficulty of their routines in line with world-class benchmarks.

"Maddie's performances showed excellent progress both with the difficulty of the routines and her performance of them."

Women's artistic gymnastics national coach Peggy Liddick said it was a treat to watch so many encouraging performances from the new generation of Rio gymnasts, with many new skills and combinations on display as dictated by the new Code of Points.

"I am very happy with the gymnasts and the personal coaches who did the work in the gym and had the courage to get out on the competition floor and compete at a world class level," Liddick said.

"We've raised our standards and those athletes and coaches who work the hardest will be the ones who take Australia to a podium finish."

Amaya King Koi placed second on 50.875 and Georgia Godwin finished third with a total score of 49.975.

After a close men's artistic gymnastics senior team final, Queensland took home gold ahead with a remarkable 242.950, ahead of Victoria's 235.900.

Adam Sachs said he was impressed with the level of competition on display.

"The Queensland men's artistic gymnastics team, underpinned by Olympic medallist Naoya Tsukahara, performed cleanly to take home the gold medal," Sachs said.

"Naoya showed terrific leadership within the team and, despite his age, displayed two new skills on rings."

Australia's elite gymnasts will continue to compete at the 2013 Australian Gymnastics Championships as they prepare for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and, ultimately, the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Olympic silver medallist Lisa Darmanin has welcomed the high standard of sailing by female competitors at Sail Sydney and shared her hope that some of them will be wearing national colours at Tokyo in 2020.

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